Why is Chris Davis suddenly awesome?

Orioles first baseman Chris Davis leads the Major Leagues in home runs. He’s first in slugging, total bases, and extra base hits. He’s second in OPS and RBI, and in the top five in too many offensive categories to bother listing. He is by every account a stud, by far the best hitter in an Orioles lineup that has helped carry the club to a 47-36 record despite mostly substandard starting pitching.

But as recently as two years ago, the now 27-year-old Davis floundered on the fringes of the Majors, dominating Triple-A pitching but missing it too frequently in the pros — earning himself the dreaded “Quad-A” label stuck on players thought incapable of sustaining success in the bigs. In 882 at-bats over parts of four season with the Rangers, Davis mustered only a .794 OPS despite his copious power.

Texas traded Davis and starter Tommy Hunter to the Orioles at the trade deadline in 2011 to pick up reliever Kohi Uehara in an effort to fortify their bullpen during a playoff run. Davis played in 31 games for Baltimore late that season before becoming a regular — and smashing 33 homers — in 2012.

Even after that success, it would have been near impossible and probably downright silly to predict this type of success for Davis in 2013. So what gives? Why is Chris Davis suddenly so awesome? It seems there are four possible explanations, some more popular and more probable than others.

But looking a bit closer, it’s difficult to decipher a massive change. He has swung at pitches outside the zone slightly less often and swung at strikes slightly more frequently than he typically did in the past, and small adjustments can sometimes lead to big differences in baseball. While reserving more swings for hittable pitches, Davis has made more contact — and more hard contact — than ever before. That’s hardly surprising, though it does seem something of a leap to say that a minor adjustment in approach can account for the major difference in Davis’ production.

2. Good luck/randomness:

This is a pesky and utterly underwhelming explanation for many of baseball’s great narratives, but it’s often the case. The difference between a .270 hitter and a .330 hitter appears massive, and most fans will guarantee they can distinguish between the two after only infrequent observation. But the distinction is as tiny as one hit every four games, which means luck can have a heck of a hand in a ballplayer’s breakout.

Another Oriole that enjoyed an unexpected power season — heartthrob Brady Anderson — once told the Baltimore Sun of his 50-homer 1996 campaign, “that’s just one more home run per week, just one more good swing. That is the data that simultaneously comforted me and haunted me, the small difference between greatness and mediocrity.”

(PHOTO: Tom Szczerbowski/USA TODAY Sports)

Davis’ batting average on balls in play — a stat often used in part to measure good fortune — is 36 points above his career norm but his line-drive rate is about the same as it has always been. Davis’ batted balls have found more holes and more gaps (and more seats) than they typically did in the past, though that uptick on its own can hardly explain the huge increase in his batting average.

3. Time and place:

Davis is 27, the age when hitters are expected to enjoy their best seasons. It’s reasonable to assert that he’s better than he was in 2012, and better still than he was in all his Rangers years before that, simply as a function of his natural development. But again, since Davis’ improvement in 2013 is extraordinary, maturation alone can’t fully explain it.

The 2013 campaign also marks only Davis’ second full season as a big-league regular, which might benefit him in both obvious and nebulous ways. More repetitions and more exposure to Major League pitching should help any hitter improve at the level. Davis recently told the Washington Post, “the biggest thing this year is the fact I’ve been in [the lineup] every day.”

(PHOTO: Joy R. Absalon/USA TODAY Sports)

Also, though it’s impossible to prove, Davis’ job security might help him, too. A frequent criticism of young players — especially big swingers like Davis — is that they’re “trying to do too much,” taking big rips on bad pitches and losing focus on the fundamentals. It could be that there’s a positive feedback loop at play: The more he hits, the more confident and comfortable he becomes as a hitter.

4. Something more sinister:

After the steroids scandals of the late 1990s and early 2000s in baseball, many fans and media are understandably suspicious of any player enjoying unprecedented improvement. There’s absolutely nothing whatsoever to tie Davis to performance-enhancing drug use beyond some radio gaga, but since it has and will again come up, it’s worth discussing here. Davis himself had to answer to the speculation on Twitter.

Look: There’s no drug that alone can turn a player from 2012 Chris Davis to 2013 Chris Davis. If there were, we’d see this type of improvement way more frequently (and a lot of us would want some). Jose Bautista, the last player before Davis to jump from average to awesome, has said he was tested 16 times by Major League Baseball in 2010 and 2011, and proved clean every time. That certainly calls into question the supposed randomness of the league’s “random” drug testing, and suggests Davis has certainly been tested at some point over the past year as well.

In truth — and though it may seem like a copout — there’s likely no single reason Chris Davis has performed as one of the very best hitters in baseball in 2013. He’s a bit more disciplined, he’s at the age when players typically peak, he’s had more reps with which to improve, and he’s been at least a touch lucky. Small differences on the game-to-game level in baseball can account for massive differences over a whole season, and it appears Davis is benefiting from several of them.

Explanation for Orioles slugger’s breakout season difficult to decipher.

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